


Emergency Dispatch

by Bionic (Vexza)



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Cybertronian artifacts, Gen, all cody wants to do is see you turn into a giant woman, combiners, tags will update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4815629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vexza/pseuds/Bionic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a mission to retrieve a Cybertronian artifact takes a turn for the worse, the Burns family find themselves short four Rescue Bots, and the Rescue Bots find themselves in an odd and uncomfortable situation. The Autobots aren't the only ones after the relic, though, and unfortunately the Rescue Bots are the only ones who can protect it...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> HAHA HERE WE GO LETS DO THIS

It took Jiménez nearly a full minute to realize that he was staring quite intensely at his coffee cup, rather than at the clock just adjacent to it. That would certainly explain why his brain hadn’t been picking up any information about the time.

Sighing, he shifted his gaze just so to examine the red digital numbers glaring at him like spotlights in the room’s dim lighting.

_03:44 AM_

‘Ugh’ didn’t entirely encapsulate the depth of the displeasure he was feeling, so he simply returned his gaze to the screens before him in silence. At least his shift was almost over. He had already eaten dinner on his break, but that had been awhile ago now, and he really wanted to hit the hay before he started getting hungry again, otherwise he would never fall asleep. He should have stashed a snack in his bunk.

He scrubbed a hand down the side of his face, and leaned his elbow on the desk. Maybe he could bother someone else for a granola bar or something. The base was surprisingly busy for the time of night; a necessary thing when you were constantly under threat from government raids and alien attacks. Unfortunately, the door he was sitting behind was procedurally locked, and he would have a lot of explaining to do if command found out he had left his post to beg for a snack. He’d have to catch someone on his way back to the barracks, then.

His food-based daydream was cut short (perhaps luckily) by an alert popping up in the corner of one of the screens. Jiménez raised an eyebrow, but went and clicked on the alert with little hesitation.

It was one of the other monitors. Their job was fairly simple; they monitored all of the organization’s interests, potential targets, and known hotspots of alien activity. They reported any interesting observations they took to command, or sometimes to each other when they needed a second pair of eyes. It was boring, to be sure, but Jiménez wasn’t about to complain about something that gave him a check _and_ free room and board.

 _Hey Jiménez,_ the message read simply. _Check out this clip from PT site 10-A._

That coaxed the agent’s other eyebrow into rising. 10-A was a tech testing ground for the US government. Based on the handful of photographs Jiménez had seen in its file, the place was chock-full of delightful little goodies that MECH would be happy to get their hands on. Unfortunately, it was also full of civilians, which complicated extraction quite a bit. They had had a guy feeding them tech and info from the inside for awhile, but… well, he didn’t really know _what_ had happened to him, actually.

The clip finished buffering pretty quickly (bless the base’s wifi, honestly), and the monitor leaned back while it played, trying to catch all the little details.

As it turned out, the reason the other monitor had sent him the video was _pre-tty_ obvious.

Onscreen was a squat building backlit by the setting sun. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it; it just looked like an unusually long building. Perhaps it was a government building of some sort, or maybe a really ostentatious post office. The barest sliver of an asphalt road stretched along the bottom of the screen- it looked like the camera was probably set up on a telephone pole across the street from the building. People entered and exited the building in real time. It was boring to look at, to be honest, but the reason Jiménez was watching the clip quickly became apparent.

There was some commotion, and then people started fleeing every which way on the sidewalk. People who had left the building only moments before sprinted back through the doors. There was no sound, but you could practically hear the screaming just by looking at the scene. The agent leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The civilians’ reason for fleeing entered stage right; a… actually, he didn’t know what that was. It was bright red and had… chainsaws? ... attached to the front of it. It was moving pretty fast down the sidewalk, chainsaws bearing down on the slower-moving citizens.

Mere seconds later, a firetruck appeared onscreen, bearing down on the chainsaw machine with haste. It sped up until it was nearly touching the rear end of the machine with its own bumper, and then… it transformed. Into a robot.

Jiménez leaned in, pausing on a frame of the firetruck robot elbow-dropping the chainsaw machine into submission. A few swipes of his mouse had the screen zoomed in on the symbol on the robot’s chest. The monitor knew exactly what to look for, and there it was, clear as day: an Autobot symbol.

The agent leaned back. _Wow._ He quickly opened up another message to the operative that had sent the original one to him. After seeing the clip, he knew beyond reasonable doubt that the agent had more to show him. Autobots operating in broad daylight on high-tech testing grounds? Jiménez could practically taste the score waiting to happen with this.

 _What else you got?_ He sent, and received a reply almost instantly. Apparently, that was the question the other agent had been waiting for.

 _Four of them, isolated from the main crew. Non-combatants by the looks of them._ The message read. A zipped file was attached to the bottom, and Jiménez downloaded it almost hungrily.

Inside were photos upon photos, gleaned from cameras meant to observe tech, not aliens. There were four of them, like the agent had said; four aliens, mostly smaller than the cybertronians they were used to dealing with, and certainly less bulky. They weren’t armed to the teeth like the others were. _And they were alone_. A text file included with the photos revealed the other agent’s thoughts on what she had seen. All evidence pointed to the four being civilian cybertronians (or, at the very least, non-combatant cybertronians), who had arrived on Earth some time ago and had immediately been sequestered on the island. Why they had been left there was open to interpretation- perhaps, because they weren’t fighters like the rest, Autobot commanders had sent them to the island for justifiable fears for their safety- but in the end, Jiménez supposed, it didn’t really matter.

It had been difficult to get eyes inside Griffin Rock, and now the reason for that seemed obvious. He couldn’t believe that idiot Morocco hadn’t reported the presence of giant transforming robots on the island, but it mattered little now. MECH had been waiting on a break like this one for _months_. The agent could hardly believe it. Four aliens just sitting there, ripe for the taking.

The giddiness in his stomach finally bubbled up, and he chuckled involuntarily, exhaustion forgotten. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he tapped out a quick reply to the other agent.

_Jackpot._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, this is the first "actual" chapter, aka the first chapter the rescue bots and co. are actually in. i've actually got a fair amount of this fic planned out already, so while i won't make promises on update speed, know that if i'm posting a chapter it means there's already a pretty solid outline for the chapter after that. thanks for reading, ya'll, and i hope you enjoy this chapter, bc ppl are gonna get REKT in the next one.

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, Heatwave was muttering angrily to himself, and Mr. Harrison was having another close brush with a horrifying, fiery death. It was an average day in Griffin Rock.

Blades was seated in front of the TV, as he often was, and Kade was sprawled beside him on the couch in a sleepy daze. Despite the fact that he had been an emergency worker for years now, being awake at 8 am just wasn’t something that his body could get used to, and he was watching whatever reality show Blades was into this week through a groggy film he just couldn’t blink away. He needed coffee. Why hadn’t he gotten coffee before coming down here?

Someone in the show said something funny, and both of them laughed in the same instant, before quickly falling back into the companionable silence maintained when groups of people watched TV together. Dani, fresh off the treadmill, walked over and stood by the couch for a moment while she tried to calm her breathing into a normal rhythm. She only stood there until something else funny happened and all three of them laughed, and then she took the elevator back upstairs, likely to take a shower before her day really began. No words were exchanged between any of them.

Boulder watched this display from the other side of the room in mute fascination. It was so strange; not only the way the humans behaved, but also the way Blades had slipped right into the routine without trouble. Amazing. He returned to his work.

He had wanted to try drawing with pencils for awhile now, but alas, he was far too large to hold a pencil properly. Hearing Boulder’s plight, Cody had graciously helped him order some of those huge joke pencils you could win at fairs and buy at dollar stores, and while they were still a bit too small for his huge hands, he was pleased with what he had been able to do with them so far. He wasn’t sure if you could buy these joke pencils in colors, but he sure hoped so.

There was a short sound of hydraulics working, and then the elevator began to make its way back down into the bunker. Boulder glanced at it briefly, but focused on his art. When the elevator touched the ground, it opened to reveal Chief Burns, who stepped out with a mug of coffee in each hand.

“Morning.” He greeted pleasantly, moving towards the couch.

“Morning, Chief.” Both of the present bots replied cheerfully. It had taken awhile for them to fully grasp the concept of pointing out what time of day it was when you greeted and parted, but now that they understood the sentiment behind it and had stopped asking questions about it, Chief found that the bots were probably the most pleasant people to be around in the morning (at least, compared to Kade). It was probably because they didn’t have to sleep.

Chief silently handed one of the mugs to his eldest son, who gasped and took it readily. After just one sip, he made a pleased sound and replied, “Morning, Dad”.

Chief clapped a hand to his shoulder and turned slightly to look up at Blades. “How was your night?”

Blades shrugged. “Oh, you know. The usual. Heatwave briefed us on the mission today and then we just sort of hung out. Do you think I could learn how to sleep? It would probably help pass the time.”

Chief chuckled at the wistful tone in the bot’s voice, and Kade slowly raised his head. He cast a suspicious glance from his father to the helicopter bot.

“We have a mission today?” His voice was carefully controlled to convey one message: this better be worth my valuable time.

“The bots picked up an energon signal from the mainland, not too far from here.” Chief explained. “We’re going to check it out this afternoon. It shouldn’t take too long; we just want to look.”

Kade sighed, heavy and long. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“We just talked about it last night.” Chief held up his free hand in a gesture of surrender. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about it before you passed out face first on your bed.”

“I was tired!” Kade retorted defensively.

Blades shot Boulder a long-suffering look across the room. Boulder merely smiled back.

\---

Going out on the ocean with the full team always felt really dicey to Chief. All eight of them stuck on a boat together could quickly get out of hand, depending on how close to each other Blades, Heatwave, Kade, and Dani sat. Luckily, everyone seemed a bit worn out by a long night of rescues, and Heatwave actually seemed to be in something resembling a good mood. All in all, the trip was going surprisingly well.

“Chief.” Chase leaned down slightly so that he could speak directly to the human without being obscured by the roof over the boat’s wheel. “We are nearing the mainland. Once the coast is in sight, turning 4 degrees southward should put us directly on course.”

“Thanks Chase.” He replied, and the bot straightened up. He was sitting near the center of the boat, facing Heatwave and Boulder, who were sitting in the back. Directly before Chief, Blades was lounging on the bow of the ship, alternately watching the waves before them, and Graham doing some homework beside him. Apparently, Blades was the perfect windbreak when it came to trying to keep your papers from flying everywhere.

“Dang, sis.” Kade said, arms crossed firmly across his chest. “You look tired. Those bags under your eyes are no joke.”

Tiredly, Dani looked around for a reflective surface to assess the damage with. Heatwave watched her for a moment before he made eye contact with Kade and simply uttered; “That’s no way to speak to one of the most beautiful humans on the planet.”

There was a brief moment where Dani was clearly processing what was said, before she grinned fiercely. “Yeah, fuck you!” She held up a fist, which Heatwave quickly tapped in response, also grinning.

Chief nearly rolled his eyes, but a tiny smile graced his features. “Settle down back there.” He said firmly, before Kade could even think to think of a response. His eldest did roll his eyes, but good-naturedly kept silent.

Another neutral silence fell upon the boat’s passengers, and nothing but the sound of the waves and the boat’s engine disturbed it until the coastline came into view. Chief carefully corrected their course, as advised by Chase, and settled in for another long few minutes of what basically amounted to cruise control. Beside him, Chase twisted slightly where he sat to watch the mainland grow larger on the horizon.

“I have not been on the mainland since we were first assigned to Griffin Rock.” Chase mused suddenly.

The others stirred from their silent reveries. “Me neither.” Boulder added. “Heatwave’s the only one who’s been since we got here.”

There was a pregnant pause while the collected Burnses considered this information. “Oh yeah, huh?” Graham realized, guilt tainting his words slightly, as if it were his fault the bots never left the island.

“We should go more often.” Blades said wistfully. “I want to see the _sights_ , you know? Oh!” He sat up suddenly. “We should go on a road trip!”

There was a murmur of assent from the back of the boat, and all eyes fell on Chief. Internally, he shrank at the sudden attention. He couldn’t say no now, could he? “Well, if we all went, we’d have to do something about the emergency responses while we were gone…” This didn’t seem to deter Blades, with his puppy-dog stare and pleading hand gestures. “I’ll think about it.”

“Yes!” Blades crowed, and grinned brightly. The others all broke into enthused conversations about where they wanted to go and what they wanted to see. Chief sighed at himself. To them, ‘maybe’ meant ‘yes’. Perhaps it was his own fault for being such a pushover when it came to things like this. He should be a stricter parent.

Yeah, right.

“As long as we don’t go camping again.” Heatwave muttered, eyeing Boulder suspiciously.

Kade laughed aloud at that. “After the last couple times? No way in hell.”

“Hey, we don’t have a lot of ‘wilderness’ on Cybertron, okay?” Heatwave grumbled defensively. “And I’m not really sure I can find the enjoyment in depriving yourself of technology and basic amenities for a weekend.”

It quickly devolved from there into an argument about the pros and cons of ‘getting lost in a primus-forsaken forest’, as Heatwave put it. Chief tuned it out with practiced ease and focused on the waves ahead.

By the time they were within a stone’s throw of the shoreline, Blades and Dani had both settled on going to an amusement park of some kind, Heatwave wanted to drive halfway across the country (not to get to a specific place, just to drive), Chase wanted to go to New Jersey for some unspecified reason, and Boulder, naturally, wanted to go to a national park. Graham merely listened to the suggestions with no small measure of amusement and said he’d be fine with anything.

“We should ask Cody when we get home.” Boulder suggested, and he was met with approval all around.

There was no point in telling them no at this stage of planning, Chief supposed. Besides, it had been years since any of them had gotten a decent vacation, and he couldn’t even remember the last family trip Cody had been on. Maybe it was time for a break.

When they finally reached their destination, Chief pulled into the shallower water so the bots could hop out and help push the boat up on to dry land. The energon signal seemed to be originating from deep within a seaside cliff that towered above them, rocky and bare from frequent rockslides. No doubt, one such rocky avalanche had revealed the signal to them. The bots pushed and pulled the boat through a maze of rocks that Chief would never have been able to navigate on his own until they found a sandy patch of ground to push it up onto.

“We’re not gonna have to climb up there, are we?” Kade gestured at the cliff after he hopped down onto the small patch of sand.

“We?” Heatwave repeated, casting his partner a dangerous look.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Boulder interrupted swiftly. He had walked a bit ahead of the main group, and gestured to a huge hole in the rock. “There’s a natural cave system down here. If the signal was just freed from the rock, it’s most likely somewhere down there.”

“Good.” Kade turned towards Heatwave and patted his leg almost affectionately. “I wouldn’t want you to have to _strain_ _yourself_.”

Heatwave narrowed his optics at the human, but let him climb into his cab without another word. The other bots did the same for their partners. As Graham hopped into Boulder’s cab, the green bot pulled out some kind of flat device, the screen stretched across its face already displaying a layout of where they were standing, complete with little dots indicating both their current position and the origin of the signal they were tracking. Boulder made to hand it to Heatwave, but the firetruck waved it away.

“You take the lead.” He said, and Boulder pulled the device back to himself. “I’ll go last.”

Boulder simply nodded, then turned and walked purposefully straight into the opening in the rock. Chase checked to see if the light on his forearm was working, and then followed. Blades, who was already feeling a bit claustrophobic, was right on Chase’s tail, and Heatwave took one more scan of the beach before he, too, disappeared into the cliff’s face.

\---

Heatwave’s strategy for entering the cliff was better than perhaps even he had realized at the time (at least Kade thought so). The caves, while they were surprisingly wide, were not tall in any sense of the word, and the uneven ground rendered their ability to transform into vehicles useless. He probably hadn’t intended it this way, but Heatwave had ordered the bots into the cave in order of height, which meant that while Boulder could get through each passage without much trouble, it also meant that Heatwave and Blades had the misfortune of running face-first into basically every single stalactite they passed.

Of course, Kade thought this was hilarious.

“Are we getting close?” Heatwave called up to Boulder desperately after another run-in with the roof of the cave had sent Kade into a fit of giggles.

“We’re getting there.” Boulder replied vaguely, and pressed onwards. “These caves aren’t leading directly to the signal; we’ve gone around it a few times.”

Heatwave growled and stopped to examine the wall to his left. “Can we just break through these to get there?”

“That might collapse the whole tunnel system.” Boulder responded without looking back at him.

Heatwave’s growling intensified.

There was nothing they could do but keep moving forward. After another nasty collision with a stalactite, Blades started walking with his head hovering down near Chase’s shoulder, in a posture that looked suspiciously like cowering.

“I’m not scared of a _cave_.” Blades assured Dani. “I just like my face the way it is.”

Suddenly, Boulder stopped in his tracks. Chase nearly ran into him, and Heatwave DID run into Blades. The bulldozer turned as best he could to face the others.

“What?” Heatwave snapped, ignoring Blades’s exclamations of distress. “Why are we stopping?”

“It’s the signal.” Boulder explained, frowning at the screen. Graham eyed it as well, but he couldn’t see anything amiss from his angle. “I thought the signal was being distorted by the rock, but it didn’t change when we started getting closer. It’s just gotten stronger.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Chief asked.

Boulder stared at the signal display for a moment longer, the faint frown on his face starkly illuminated by the device’s screen. “It’s definitely Cybertronian in nature, but I don’t think it’s energon. Best guess, I’d say it’s some sort of machine or…” Here, he looked up at his team uncertainly. “A person, maybe? It’s not quite a spark signature, but a lot of the readings I’ve been getting from it in the last few minutes are pretty consistent with the energy sparks emit.”

There was dead silence for a long few seconds.

“That’s weird.” Heatwave said finally.

“That’s _weird_?” Blades burst. “That’s _weird_? That’s crazy! You don’t mess with stuff that might-be-a-spark-but-isn’t-actually! That’s the stuff horror movies are built on! I mean, we all watched the same zombie movies, right?”

“I seriously doubt that it is a zombie.” Chase assured the bot at his shoulder before he could go into hysterics. “There are cybertronian devices and artifacts that could produce energy at similar frequencies, they are simply uncommon. Besides, there are not many zombies on Cybertron, and likely there are even less here on Earth.”

Boulder nodded at Chase while Kade mouthed ‘not many…?’ to himself.

“Could it be an artifact like the one that turned rock into water?” Chief asked, tone serious. That artifact had nearly sunk the island and everyone on it, and if the thing in the cliff was something similar, it had to be dealt with immediately.

“Maybe.” Heatwave mused. “They sent a lot of weird stuff here from Cybertron, so there’s no telling what kind of damage it could cause, especially since it seems to have broken out of its container, if we’re getting a signal. I think it’s worth checking out at least, and if we can’t handle it on our own, we need to call Optimus.”

Chase nodded once, decisively, and moved back into the line they had been walking in before. Boulder, too, nodded, and turned to resume course. Blades didn’t move for a second, but at a serious look from Heatwave, the helicopter began to sulk at Chase’s side once more.

“Here we go...” He muttered.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god this chapter took me forever to write WHY. i'd like to thank chase for not giving up on me.
> 
> in other news this is where things start getting a lil more serious, should be fun, plz enjoy B)

They were deep into the cave, and the darkness was nearly absolute. Boulder’s scanner and Chase’s headlight provided the only helpful light sources this far underground. Blades was practically glued to Chase’s side, and only dared move from the cop bot’s shoulder when they passed into tunnels too restrictive to walk through side by side. Chase didn’t mind. At least the helicopter wasn’t physically clinging onto him; though, he suspected that he would be any moment now.

“The things you all make me do.” Blades whined, back at Chase’s side the instant they returned to the larger caverns. “Who knows what’s down here? We can’t run all the way back out if it’s something bad, you know! We’re backing ourselves into a corner!”

“Actually,” Boulder chimed in. “If my sonar map of the tunnels is accurate, the cavern we’re looking for is near the top of the cliff, and we would be able to climb out if something bad was in the cave.”

“Well, fine.” Blades retorted, sounding miffed. “But there are all sorts of things that could go wrong. What if- what if it’s an _insecticon_?”

That seemed to give Boulder and Heatwave pause, but Chase wasn’t fazed. “Insecticons do not travel alone, typically, and especially not on Earth. If there were insecticons in the cavern, there would not be one; there would be at least twenty. Perhaps more.”

Everyone stared silently at Chase. Even Chief gave the dashboard screen a blank look.

“What’s an insecticon?” Dani asked slowly.

“You don’t want to know.” Heatwave replied simply, and they began moving forward again. “Chase is right, though, if it was an insecticon, we would have picked up more signatures.”

“Unless it’s only one.” Blades whispered to Dani, who decided quite sensibly to ignore the entire conversation.

Despite Blades’s trepidation, Boulder didn’t alert them to any potential dangers as they neared the top of the cliff. He did, however, report that the rock was interfering with the signal, and he could only determine the artifact’s location to be within a very general area. With any luck, the zone Boulder had designated would be a single cavern, and they wouldn’t have to split up- that would only set Blades off again.

 _Not that Blades’s hesitance is unwarranted._ Chase thought to himself privately. There was no such thing as too little caution when it came to Cybertronian artifacts, and he was sure the other bots would agree with him. Even if the signal within the cave wasn’t produced by an Iaconian relic, there was no way to be sure what _was_ in the cave until they saw it with their own optics. Many things had been sent to Earth in the final days of the war; anything from energon stores to weapons of mass destruction could have landed on the organic planet, and in most cases, mishandling whatever they found could not only result in their own deaths, but in the deaths of the Burnses.

Chase slowed very slightly and half-turned, causing Blades to nearly trip over himself. “Perhaps we should have called Optimus before we began our own investigation.”

Heatwave caught his over-the-shoulder glance. “I tried.” He said simply, throwing his hands out to the side. “No answer. Plus, this is time sensitive. If it’s something that could endanger the humans nearby, we need to take care of it now.”

Chase held his leader’s gaze for only a moment longer before he turned away and continued down the tunnel. When it came to protecting their team’s lives, Chase trusted Heatwave’s judgement. On some level, he had to, but Heatwave, despite his oft-unpredictable methods and tendency to jump to conclusions, had never given Chase a reason to truly doubt his leadership. He certainly wasn’t about to start doubting now, just because the stakes were a bit higher, so onward he went.

Not a moment too soon, they emerged into a decently sized cavern, partially obscured by a plethora of stalactites. Water dripped consistently from the ceiling, though there was blessedly little of it; Chase thanked their thus-far dry autumn weather. True to Boulder’s hypothesis, there was just a bare sliver of sunlight shining from the back corner of the cavern.

“So we could have just found a way to the top of the cliff and come down that way?” Apparently Blades had seen it just as quickly as Chase had.

“Probably would have taken just as long.” Boulder offered, putting his signal tracker away in his cab.

“Look Blades, a hole you can climb out of while the rest of us work.” Heatwave pointed to the crack in the wall, ignoring the others’ comments. Blades narrowed his optics at him. Heatwave narrowed his optics right back.

“Alright.” Chief interrupted quickly, much to Chase’s relief. “This is the right place, Boulder?”

“Yup.” The bot confirmed readily. “Unless it’s trapped inside a wall along here, it should be somewhere in this cavern.”

“It’s not too big.” Heatwave noted. “Fan out, look for anything that isn’t a rock- and if you see something weird, _don’t_ touch it.”

“I hear that.” Blades muttered as he finally detached himself from Chase’s side. “Dani? If you see anything weird, just tell me to run. Don’t tell me what it is. Just say ‘run’.”

Dani’s heavy sigh was the last thing Chase heard as Blades moved away, further into the cavern. The helicopter moved to the left, and Heatwave took the right; Boulder began his search off to the far left, and thus Chase was left to search the area near the cave’s sunlit exit.

As he got closer to the crack in the cave wall, he saw that it was not so much an exit as it was a sunroof of sorts; it was just above the bot’s eye level, and only large enough to maybe fit two humans standing side by side. He would have to consult Boulder, but it was possible they could widen the hole without collapsing the cave’s structure. It was a problem for another time, however, and he had more pressing matters to attend to.

“Alright, give me an idea of what to look for.” Chief was saying. “I’m sure you have better eyes than me, but, just in case you miss something…?”

“Certainly.” Chase said compliantly. “If we are dealing with an artifact or materials, they will be contained in standard spacefaring object transport containers, usually cylinders or spheres and colored black from atmospheric reentry. If the container is broken, it will most likely be difficult to see. If it is a Cybertronian creature we are dealing with, it would be easy to see energon or biolights on its body. Also, it would most likely be moving.”

“Noted.” Chief replied as the two moved slowly along the cave’s back wall, Chase’s lights alternately illuminating the walls and the rocky ground to each side. “What if it’s an artifact and it’s out its container? What will it look like?”

“Difficult to say.” Chase paused underneath a cluster of stalactites and checked to see if anything was lodged amongst them. No dice. “All we know for certain is that the relics contained in the Iaconian vaults were all sent into space before the Decepticons could take them. The vaults held everything from vials of the most deadly diseases our people could engineer, to ancient artifacts said to be created by the Thirteen Primes.”

Kade, who had been half-listening to Chase’s explanation over the commlinks, suddenly perked up. “Woah, woah. You saying we _might_ be dealing with a hyper-deadly disease created by aliens here?”

“No.” Heatwave said. “They would have destroyed those. The only way that kind of stuff could get to Earth would be if a plague ship crashed here, which isn’t gonna happen.”

“Plague ship?” Graham asked nervously. “Actually, I don’t want to know. Nevermind.”

The group fell into relative silence after that, the only sounds in the cave those of the bots shifting rocks aside and occasionally making comments to their human partners. It was so quiet that Chase was beginning to get suspicious; surely they must have covered most of the cave already? Had no one found even the slightest trace of anything? The quiet was almost deafening, like his audials had turned off. And was it getting darker, as well? They had only been there for a few moments, where had the sunlight gone?

Chase stopped walking for a moment and squinted at the headlight on his arm. Was his own light dimming as well? He shook his arm in a vain effort to brighten the light, confused at what might be wrong with it- and the motion nearly knocked him onto his behind.

“Woah there.” Chief exclaimed, startled. “You alright, partner?”

It was only when Chief spoke to him that Chase started to sense that something was wrong. Chief’s voice sounded miles away. He realized the cavern wasn’t quiet, he just couldn’t hear anything, like someone had stuffed fabric into his audials. The cave wasn’t dark, either; his vision was just going black around the edges.

True to form, Chase reacted to this rather serenely.

“Chase?” Chief repeated, sounding a little more serious.

“I am feeling rather light-headed.” Chase replied calmly. He didn’t feel himself sinking to his knees until his vision cleared slightly and he noticed the ground was a lot closer than it had been a moment ago.

He heard Heatwave say something- well, demand something, more likely- over the comm, but Chase just couldn’t make it out. He placed his hands on the rock wall and pushed firmly, trying to climb back to his feet, but his vision swam even moreso than before and he ended up slumped against the wall.

“Dad? Dad, can you hear me?” Dani called suddenly across the comm.

“What is it? Are you and Blades alright?” Chief replied, voice steady while he tried to monitor Chase’s condition.

“I think we found the artifact.” She reported, sounding… concerned? “I think it’s affecting Blades, he won’t talk to me.”

Chase heard _that_. Using the wall like an inconvenient crutch, the police car began to stumble over to where he knew Blades had been only just a moment before, using his GPS more than his sense of sight. It was slow going; that much he could tell, but he was too disoriented to know exactly how long it took him to walk the twenty feet to the edge of the wall he was leaning against. It felt like hours.

He did make it, though. He slouched heavily against the wall and peered around the corner, optics narrowed ineffectually. His vision certainly wasn’t getting any better, and neither was his sudden dizziness. He could just barely make out an orange shape that had to be Blades on the floor only a car length or two away from where he stood now, and behind him…

Chase couldn’t tell if it was his dimmed optics betraying him or not, but behind Blades, on a small outcropping of rock, was some sort of _object_ that was lit up like a spotlight. More than that, it seemed to be moving. He wasn’t sure if the rapidly changing surface of the object was a trick of his swimming vision or if it actually was moving, and frankly Chase didn’t quite care. One look at the thing and he knew; he knew it was what they were looking for, and he knew it was the source of the signal that was currently scrambling his processor, it’s odd abilities likely activated by their presence.

Disoriented as he was, Chase came to a decision quickly. “Blades,” He called, voice sounding shakier and softer than he would have liked. Blades, on his hands and knees and not moving any time soon, didn’t look up. Chase continued firmly, “Blades, open your canopy.”

The helicopter bot made a soft noise half between pain and confusion, but he complied with Chase’s order readily, the telltale _swish_ of his canopy opening following Chase’s words by mere moments.

“Dani, get away from the artifact.” Chief called across the comms, stepping in when Chase found his vocal processor failing him. Gratitude wormed its way into Chase’s spark, and the bot redirected his focus into not falling unconscious when there were still humans that needed to be evacuated. He didn’t know what the artifact was doing to their systems, but he did know that he didn’t want any of the Burnses anywhere near it. The crack in the walls was only a hundred or so feet behind them, if he could make it that far-

“But Blades-“

“ _Now,_ Dani.”

Chase didn’t so much hear Dani’s frustrated noise as feel it in his spark, and he crouched down slightly to better watch the human as she ran across the gap between the two bots. The artifact didn’t seem to react to her movement. Good.

“Heatwave-”

“I’m right here.”

Chase started, and dismay blossomed in his spark. Heatwave was standing just behind him, hovering uncomfortably close. It would only be a matter of time before the artifact’s signal overtook him as well. Luckily, it only took one look at the police bot’s face for him to realize the severity of the situation. Heatwave glanced over at Blades, his fists clenching and unclenching, like he itched to run over to the bot and help. Sense seemed to win out, and the expressions warring across his faceplates solidified into firm determination.

“Everyone, go.” He ordered. “Boulder, help them out of that crevice.”

“That’s your plan?” Kade retorted immediately. “’Oh, it’s too dangerous, bye’?”

“It is too dangerous.” Heatwave maintained, his voice remaining steady despite Kade’s bait. “We’ll figure it out, but it’s too dangerous for you humans to be around.”

“And it’s _not_ dangerous for y-“

“Don’t argue.” Chief warned as he hopped out of Chase’s cab. Chase didn’t so much as twitch, his optics starting to dim into darkness.

Kade made a disgusted noise, but he complied, and hopped out of his seat onto Heatwave’s waiting palm. Heatwave lowered him to the ground- and stumbled, ending up on his hands and knees just to Chase’s side. Kade, who had managed to hop onto the cave floor just before the vertigo had seized the bot, turned and gave his partner a bewildered look.

“Oh.” The fire bot grumbled, displeased at his body for betraying him. “Okay.”

“Come on.” Chief urged, grabbing his eldest’s shoulder and spinning him around. Dani and Kade exchanged glances and rushed over to where Boulder was standing, just underneath the faint sunlight streaming into the cave. Graham was already standing at the mouth of the exit.

The green bot wasted no time hoisting them into the air, crowding all three of them onto his palms without giving them much opportunity to arrange themselves. All three ended up kneeling with their elbows in each other’s faces; Dani and Kade, aggravated as they were, were sorely tempted to push each other out of Boulder’s hands. Luckily, Boulder wasn’t very tall and he lifted them to the crevice as fast as he could possibly manage without dropping them, where Graham was quick to pull each of his family members to their feet and out into the daylight.

Once they were finally all out of the cave, Chief Burns switched his focus from keeping his children out of harm’s way to keeping the _rest_ of his family out of danger. A quick examination of the cave showed that Chase was still slumped unmoving against the wall, and that Heatwave was nowhere to be seen; likely around the corner attending to Blades and the artifact. The only one left to talk to then was Boulder, who gazed up at them with bright, worried optics.

“Call Optimus!” He urged, and then he was gone too, before Chief could even get a word in edgewise.

“W- Boulder!” He called, but the bot had already disappeared around the corner as well. Chase stirred, but his focus was on the bots before him, not the humans who had already been taken to relative safety.

Chief’s mouth set in a firm line. He couldn’t just leave the bots here to fend for themselves. They might be stronger than he was, and better equipped to deal with whatever that thing in the cave was, but leaving them when they obviously needed help felt desperately _wrong_ to him, and he knew that if anything happened to them, his brain would rationalize it away as being a direct result of what he was about to do.

But what other choice did he have?

“Let’s get back to the boat’s radio.” He ordered, and started jogging out onto the grassy top of the cliff, already scanning for a way to get down.

“Dad!” One of the kids called, but he didn’t respond. He knew how they felt, God did he ever, but there was only one thing they could really do, and that was call for backup.

Back at the cave’s exit, Dani and Graham squinted into the near-darkness. They could still see Chase, but that was it. The glow from the whatever-it-was seemed to have intensified. As they watched, Chase tilted his head slightly in confusion- and then recoiled, violently, as a resounding _crack_ echoed through the cave and everything lit up like lightning had struck. Chase started scooting backwards slowly.

Graham and Dani exchanged equally distressed glances and started running back to the boat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we'll check in on the bots sometime in the next chapter lmao


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God this took so long to write I'm so sorry, I literally started this chapter right after the last one, and I wrote the bulk of it in NOVEMBER, for those of you keeping track, it's almost March right now.
> 
> Anyways, if it seems like half of this chapter was written way before the other half, that's because it was. I'm so sorry.
> 
> Also a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who has commented, I'm sorry I haven't replied to everyone, but I assure you that your comments are seen and appreciated!

_Why_ could none of their missions go off without a hitch?

Like, alright, most of the time their day-to-day rescues went well. The whole team was trained and experienced, and when people’s lives were at stake they buckled down and got the job done with very few mistakes. But missions? When they had to go out and accomplish a specific task for one reason or another? Those _never_ went well, at least as far as Kade knew. If it wasn’t dinosaurs or giant monsters, it was time travel, supervillainy, lycanthropy- the list went on. And why?

Kade was beginning to think someone in the family had pissed off some sort of divine being. Probably Dani- that sounded like something she would do. Maybe their next mission could be figuring out what sort of deity they had ticked off and making Heatwave challenge them to a supernatural arm wrestling contest. That would solve their problems, right?

Ugh, he had to focus. He bit his lip, hard, and leaned over the side of the cliff just enough to spot any possible ways down. Unfortunately, the cliff dropped off right into the rocky shallows below. No plants grew on the sheer rock face below them- in fact, it looked like the cliff actually angled inwards for a bit. Kade supposed Dani could try climbing down if they really needed her to, but he couldn’t see their dad agreeing to that.

For a moment, all was silent. Chief and Dani stood to either side of Kade, probably coming to the same conclusions he had. A little further away, Graham, already sick from the height, was staying well away from the cliff’s edge and trying to gauge how far they would have to walk to find a slope back down to the beach. A light breeze ruffled the grass around them. All was silent. It didn’t match the noise in Kade’s brain, and he itched.

“I could try climbing-” Dani began.

“No.” Chief interrupted firmly, and Kade finally found his opportunity to interject.

“What are we supposed to do?” The fireman paced away from the cliff and huffed shortly through his nose. “We don’t have time to walk around!” He eyed Graham for confirmation and, luckily for Kade, the engineer nodded in agreement.

“Our comms won’t reach the island, so we can’t radio anyone else.” Graham added, looking to Chief as well. “And… I left my phone on the boat.”

Chief patted down his pockets suddenly, and Dani did the same. Kade didn’t bother: he didn’t carry it around with him while he was on the job. There had never been a need to before now, and he just got too distracted when he had it with him anyways. Now, though, he wished he’d brought it with him to text with Haley like he’d wanted to. He ground his teeth.

Surprisingly, his sister withdrew her phone from her pocket triumphantly, despite the fact that she conveniently never had her phone on her when people tried to call her. The touchscreen unlocked audibly mere moments after the phone left the confines of her pocket, and Dani frowned at it.

“You have service, right?” Kade asked, his tone barely concealing the full-on meltdown lurking just beneath the surface.

“Yeah.” She replied, and Chief couldn’t contain his sigh of relief. “It’s just a little shoddy. I’m going to call Doc.” Her thumbs tapped at the screen rapidly, and after she’d put in all seven digits she held the phone towards the sky in an age-old attempt to get the signal to strengthen while it rang loudly through the speaker.

“If he doesn’t answer, call Baranova.” Chief said, hovering near Dani’s shoulder and staring intently at the phone like that would help the call connect faster. Dani nodded, distracted.

After a few rings, Kade realized that wishful thinking was not, in fact, going to get them better reception, and that he was still grinding his teeth. It was beginning to hurt, actually, and he willed himself to stop by looking anywhere else.

Unfortunately his eyes took him back over to the cave opening they had left what felt like hours ago. He couldn’t hear anything from within, and that was probably more concerning than anything else. What was going on in there? Were they alright?

 _They’re probably dead already_ , some little voice in the back of his head whispered, and Kade scrambled to quash it. He was grinding his teeth again.

 _No, that’s stupid._ He thought, almost too quickly. They were all too tough to have been killed by whatever that thing was, but, as his brain recoiled from the thought of that it wandered over to the other possibilities. What could that thing be doing to them? What had Chase said? He hadn’t been listening at the time but now he wished he had. Or did he? What sort of awful things could be happening in that cave?

“Uh, Dad?” His thoughts were interrupted by Graham’s tentative voice, strengthened by some urgency. Kade’s head whipped around to look around at him. His younger brother’s eyes were fixed on something out towards the sea, and Kade followed his line of sight.

Out across the water, there was a formation of six jets. They were sleek, white, and virtually identical as far as Kade could tell at this distance. They were pointed in the Burnses’ direction, and closing in on their location with unnerving speed; Kade supposed he wasn’t used to seeing jets fly this close. And they _were_ close- though they were still a fair distance away, they were flying much lower than they probably ought to be. Based on their trajectory, it actually looked like they might skirt just above the grass and rocks of the cliff, which had to be a dangerous maneuver in vehicles as fast as those.

“Hide.” Chief said without hesitation as his gaze lighted on the jets.

“What?” Kade tore his gaze away from the formation to cast a confused glance at his father, but Chief was already moving, pushing both Dani and Kade back towards a particularly messy pile of rocks and boulders just a few yards away from the edge of the cliff. Kade stumbled a bit as he turned around so as to not walk backwards, but he remained silent and did as he was told (for once). Graham hurried alongside them, face even paler than it had been when he had seen the drop-off behind them.

They barely made it to the rocks in time. Dani, who reached them first, quickly dropped to all fours and clambered into a tunnel made by the rocks, and her father and brothers quickly followed suit, with Chief ushering Kade in when his eldest made to stay behind and go in last. Chief himself had barely hidden himself under the rocky debris when the screaming of the jets finally became unbearable and the aircraft in question reached the edge of the cliff.

Once there was land underneath them, they transformed. Of course. Kade didn’t really see them do it, but he’d been around the bots too long. The sound was unmistakable, and the way it swiftly replaced the sound of ultra-hot engines was too odd to be anything else.

The rocks were positioned haphazardly, so while it gave the Burnses general cover from being seen, there were huge gaps above them that let light stream through- and would let the robots that had just landed on the cliffside see them if they walked too close to the boulders. Graham and Dani, sensing their vulnerability under a particularly large skylight, crammed themselves even further into the tunnel. Dani folded herself uncomfortably between two rocks, and Graham pushed himself back towards Kade and to the side as far as the unforgiving stone and his brother would let him.

The really annoying thing was how quiet the other bots were. They were moving around with all the dull thudding grace of a semi-truck, but they weren’t saying anything. It seemed like they knew exactly where they were going, and though Kade couldn’t see the destination in question, he had a pretty good idea.

 _What the hell is going on?_ It was on the tip of his tongue. Kade wanted to say it. He had to fight the irresistible urge to yell it, to say it, to whisper it, and to sprinkle in a few more cusswords than were objectively necessary. But, for some reason, he didn’t, not even quietly. Maybe it was the memory of Heatwave calling him out on something he had mumbled under his breath from 200 feet away that kept him from doing it. And maybe, after he put some more thought into that memory, that was the reason he suddenly became hyperaware of how loud even the tiniest breath was.

The bots outside continued to move towards the cave, and that’s when Kade realized that they might have to walk by where the four of them were hiding unless they had landed on the very precipice of the cliff. If they did, it was a virtual guarantee that they’d be seen, unless the robots had zero peripheral vision- which, given the amount of scanners they had, Kade doubted. What would they do if they were seen, anyways? There had been no movement or noise from the cave since they’d left it, which ruled out an assist from the rescue bots. Maybe the Decepticons (that’s what Kade was assuming they were) would see them and wouldn’t care about a handful of humans hiding in some rocks. This was Earth, after all. There were humans everywhere.

It looked as though he’d get a chance to find out what they would do, as the steady, heavy thumping of a Decepticon walking neared their hideout. Its shadow fell over them first, interrupting the steady flow of sunlight on the rocks. Moments later, its head came into view: a silver and featureless thing, only possessing a thin, glowing red line where eyes would be on any other bipedal creature.

Kade allowed himself that cuss word.

“Oh my God, Kade.” Dani whispered without missing a beat or taking her eyes off the Decepticon. “Shut up.”

The Decepticon noticed that. Its head tilted downwards, the visor flashing a brilliant red. The lack of expression was more than a little unnerving, and it was impossible to tell what the alien was thinking, or what it planned to do.

Kade held his breath, thinking of anything he could do if the robot decided to grab them- or squish them. There wasn’t a lot he _could_ do, but he could try to buy his family more time, at least. The con didn’t move, it merely stared for a moment.

“KR-01.” It intoned suddenly. “There are four humans on the perimeter. Please advise.”

“We’re just figments of your imagination.” Graham blurted.

“Nice save, bro.” Kade muttered.

The Decepticon didn’t seem to find this exchange funny. Too bad. It simply continued to stare at them. Kade imagined that it was probably confused, or exasperated. ‘ _Here we go again with the dang humans’_. For some reason that gave Kade a tiny sense of fierce pride in the pit of his stomach, that he could be a constant nuisance to these enormous aliens. If they didn’t want to be constantly annoyed by him, they ought to stop acting all big and tough all the time. Plus, the vindictiveness drowned out the fear. It was a bonus.

The robot’s head perked up slightly, as if it was receiving a response over its comm. Moment of truth, then. Kade would have tensed up if his muscles hadn’t already been straining in preparation to run or fight. He’d punch a robot in the face. He didn’t care.

“Understood.” It replied to whatever was on the other end of the comm. All four of the Burnses prepared for the worst.

They still weren’t ready.

From above and to the con’s side was a blur that smashed diagonally across the con’s head, sending it reeling and falling to one knee, half slumped onto its side. The blur of metal hit the ground next to it and revealed itself to be a small blue robot that had landed squarely in a fighting stance next to the Decepticon. Before the con even had a chance to gather itself, the smaller robot was moving again and had high kicked her adversary in the face and sent it sprawling onto it’s back. As the blue bot settled onto two feet again, Kade noticed the weapon in her hand- that _was_ her hand, really- moments before she levelled it at the Decepticon and fired directly into its face.

“Sick.” Kade breathed. Chief gave him a disapproving look.

Once it was obvious that the Decepticon wasn’t getting back up (and the bot _did_ check), the small blue Autobot turned to face them, weapon still hot and pointed towards the sky.

“Everyone alright?” She asked.

“I’m much better _now_.” Kade quipped back, without even thinking about it, without really hearing himself. His eyes darted over to the rest of his family. They were all looking a _bit_ harried, but they were uninjured- unharmed- for now. _For now_.

The bot’s optics narrowed for half a second, but she didn’t waste time. “We’re gonna get you out of here, just-” She was briefly interrupted by a thunderous clang and a Decepticon tumbling head-over-heels just behind her. “-just sit tight. Optimus!”

“Optimus?” Chief echoed. “Optimus is here?”

Suddenly, the reality of the situation they were in sank back in. There was the sound of alien gunfire from all sides, and the much closer noise of metal crunching metal. The mention of Optimus snapped Kade back into it.

“The Rescue Bots are in that cave, just by that ridge!” Kade shouted to the bot, pointing in the general direction of where they had last seen the other bots. “They need help!”

The bot made a good show of furrowing her brow. The rest of her expression betrayed nothing. “Wh- Rescue Bots?”

“Arcee, heads up!” A voice boomed from somewhere to the left.

Arcee crouched back down into a fighting stance just as another Decepticon half-crashed half-landed just to her side. Her weapon was already ready to go: the Decepticon’s was not. It didn’t stand a chance.

While the Burnses watched the fight in horrible fascination for a moment, but after a few moments their line of sight was blocked by a huge robotic form. Kade did a double take: he thought it was Boulder at first.

“Come on, let’s move!” The green bot commanded in a rough voice that was definitely not Boulder’s. “Through the rocks behind you, go!”

The Burnses wasted no time in following his order, clambering up and over the rocks they had been using in a vain attempt to shield themselves. Their movements took them back out into the open, where, luckily, most of the Decepticons had been dispatched already. Not all of them, though; Chief steered his children in a wide angle away from where Optimus and Bumblebee were laying down fire on a line of remaining Decepticons.

Bumblebee saw the Burnses out of the corner of his optics, and immediately started beeping in alarm.

Kade didn’t understand him, but he imagined it was something like, ‘Why are they here, where the flying frick are the Rescue Bots?’. Arcee came up and over the rocks after them, and her response confirmed the gist of the message.

“I don’t know, he said they were up on the ridge-” She was interrupted again as the ground heaved, and threw everyone sideways.

Kade, scrambling back to his feet and smeared with dirt, wondered yet again what they had done to deserve this nonsense.

The Decepticons cut their losses and launched themselves back into the sky, leaving their wounded and dead behind. Optimus, who had merely stumbled in the minor quake that had put nearly everyone else on their afts, watched them go and touched a finger to the side of his helm.

“Ratchet,” He intoned. “We need a ground bridge.”

Ground bridge? What was that? Kade was lost, but it sounded like Graham knew what the bot was talking about.

“But what about the Rescue Bots?” Graham cried, his voice drowned out by another upheaval of the earth around them.

Kade struggled to remain on his feet, and reached out to steady his younger brother as well. _This is weird_ , he suddenly realized. This wasn’t an earthquake. It was more like something under the ground was pushing up against it-

His thoughts were interrupted as the green bot came up behind them and scooped them into his hands. The side of Kade’s head knocked uncomfortably against Graham’s hardhat, and he made a noise of protest.

“We can’t help them if we get crushed in a landslide.” Arcee pointed out, helpfully. She scooped up Dani and Chief, turned away from the cliffside, and started running in the other direction.

The green bot followed suit, just as Kade saw the cave the bots had been- and the ground around it- start to collapse. Earth rushed in, and then out and over the cliff as the entire side of it began to shear away into the water.

Kade slumped in defeat.

The bots ran towards a glowing green circle of light that had seemingly ignited from nothing- and then ran through it. It closed behind them with a pop, and they were gone.

\---

_She pressed against the walls confining her again, and they finally gave way, unleashing a cascade of thick, cloying earth all around her. Heavy rocks struck her shoulders and sides, and she cried out in exhaustion and pain, but the sound was quiet and half-hearted._

_Everything hurt already. What were a few more dings and scrapes to the bodily ache she was already feeling?_

_She fought her way free of the ground, just in time for the rush of a landslide she had created to sweep her over the side of the cliff. She landed, hard, on the rocks below, water flying up all around her in a mighty splash._

_She simply sat there, for a moment, earth falling all around her. She was so tired._

_Her vision swam, but she lifted her hands to her face- all of them- to take stock of any injuries to them._

_As she sat there, staring at her hands, she could not help but feel that something was terribly wrong, but she could not, for the life of her, think of what it was._

_Her body ached. Her chest burned. She crawled away from the collapsing cliffside behind her and into the ocean before her. The water swallowed her, and she was gone._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Burnses fill Team Prime in on the events of the day. The Rescue Bots fill themselves in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY YA'LL so, a couple orders of business. First of all, I bumped the rating down to G because theres really nothing kid-unfriendly in this fic except the f-bombs these crazy kids keep dropping (sorry about that). I also changed the fic summary bc i didnt like the last one so, there u go. same fic tho, I havent really changed anything else.
> 
> the last is that- i know i havent been replying to every comment, and i apologize! rest assured i read all of them and enjoy basking in your praise, so thank u for that c:

Going through the ground bridge was a bit disorienting, but then, Graham had always been prone to motion sickness.

At first, it was just a mess of light and deep thrumming sound, but then he felt a subtle change in the air around them; it almost seemed to thicken, and then they broke through it with the unmistakable feeling of a threshold being crossed. Graham felt dizzy.

He couldn’t see much, cupped inside the big green bot’s hands, but he noticed when the green swirling vortex of the bridge gave way to a vaulted metal ceiling, and the bot slowed to a stop. A moment later, he found himself being lowered to the floor, and he hopped out of the bot’s hands. He stumbled, still disoriented from the bridge and being run around by a robot, and Kade reached out to steady him.

Graham closed his eyes for a moment and tried to fight off his nausea. It wasn’t just from the trip through the ground bridge, he knew. Half of it was from watching the cave collapse in on the Rescue Bots- and then turning away and leaving them to their fate. He tried not to think about it, though. He tried desperately not to think about that.

He opened his eyes again and nodded his thanks to Kade, who quickly removed his hand from his brother’s shoulder. That taken care of, they turned to look up at their savior.

Their eyes were met by a pair of bright blue optics, narrowed and staring down at them in concern. Graham recognized the look; he was probably scanning them for injuries. He’d seen the Rescue Bots do it often enough. He felt a flash of annoyance shoot through him, but he shut the feeling away as quickly as it came, startled by his own reaction.

Kade apparently felt the same way, but did not contain himself nearly as well.

“We’re fine, thanks.” He said shortly, and the bot moved back a fraction of an inch at the sour tone.

“Just checking.” The bot explained amicably. “I’m not exactly the most careful bot around.”

Graham would have said that it was fine, and that he appreciated that the bot would check up on them, but the nauseous feeling in his stomach had been overcome with a bodily exhaustion, and he found that he couldn’t say anything.

Kade didn’t say anything either; rather, he turned his attention to the small blue robot that had saved them from the first Decepticon. She had carefully set Chief and Dani on the floor as well, and the two Burnses rushed to their sides.

“Are you alright?” Chief asked immediately, in a demanding tone softened at the edges by concern.

“We’re fine, Dad.” Kade groused, but there was no ill will in his words. He sounded just as tired as Graham felt.

Dani slowed in front of Graham, and wordlessly opened her arms; Graham let her embrace him. He felt her hands shaking very slightly as she did, and he hugged her tight to his chest. After a moment, she let out a long breath, and her trembling steadied.

Graham felt something heavy settling on the ground more than he heard it. He turned to look, and was met with a concerned look from Optimus Prime himself.

“All of you are unhurt?” He asked.

Chief glanced back at his two younger children, then back up at Optimus. “Looks like it.” He confirmed.

“Good.” He rumbled. “I am sorry that your family was caught up in Autobot matters, Chief Burns. I had hoped that neither you nor the Rescue Bots would ever find themselves in Decepticon crosshairs, but I am afraid my response to Heatwave’s call was delayed, and I was unable to keep your team safely out of harm’s way.”

Graham dropped his gaze from Optimus down to his father, and fixed his eyes on the back of Chief’s head. Nothing was said for a long moment. Then, Graham thought he might have seen his shoulders sag- but only for a moment.

“We knew it might be dangerous.” He replied, his voice as clear and firm as Optimus’s. “We agreed to help them anyways. I’m only sorry it turned out to be the worst-case scenario.”

Graham straightened at his father’s words, his expression hardening. _Yeah_. He thought. He felt Dani pull out of his grip and he adjusted slightly so only one of his arms remained around her shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her set her jaw, and cross her arms, and knew she felt the same resolve forming in her gut at Chief’s words. To his other side, he thought he might’ve seen a self-assured glint in Kade’s eye. Chief was right. They had known the danger. They knew the danger every day they got up and went to work. At this point, dealing with alien robot drama was hardly new, or unexpected.

He only wished they could have actually _helped_ the bots.

He shook the thought off. This wasn’t over yet. The bots were still out there- they had to be. They were out there, and they still needed their help.

Optimus Prime nodded once, and Bumblebee beeped unintelligibly at them. Graham felt grateful for the unspoken words of both bots.

“Ratchet.” Optimus called suddenly, turning away from the Burnses. “Can you detect the Rescue Bots’ signals?”

“Negative.” An unfamiliar voice responded. Graham tracked it deeper into the base, and was met with the white-and-red back of another new Autobot. Ratchet was the Autobot medic, if he was remembering what Boulder had said right; and, considering the bot looked like he changed into an ambulance, he figured he did.

“What about the relic? Decepticons?” The blue bot asked.

“Negative on both counts.” Ratchet said. “The Decepticon signals disappeared shortly after I bridged you back, so I can only imagine they retreated to the Nemesis. As for the relic and the Rescue Bots-” Here, Graham saw the bot shake his head and turn to look at the group gathered behind him. “Nothing.”

“What does that mean?” Kade demanded immediately.

“It could mean a variety of things.” Ratchet explained, unperturbed. “Several factors could interfere with my detection software. If they were deep underground or underwater, the signal wouldn’t be as strong. On the more negative side, it could mean that they were taken in by the Decepticons, or-” His optics flickered over to Optimus for the briefest of moments. “That they were offlined.”

Dani’s shoulders slumped. “Ugh, I don’t even want to think about that.”

Graham agreed whole-heartedly.

“For now,” Optimus said. “We will assume that the Rescue Bots are still online and in need of assistance.”

Suddenly, the big green bot that had grabbed Graham and Kade pounded his fists together with a thunderous metal _clang_ , and all four of the Burnses started. “I’m always ready to kick ‘con tailpipes!” He boomed.

“Easy, Bulkhead.” Optimus half-raised a hand toward him. “It is unlikely that Heatwave and his team were captured during the fight, and even if they were, we cannot simply launch an assault on the Nemesis.”

“Aw.” Bulkhead dropped his hands, and Arcee shook her head at him.

Chief looked between them, then threw in his two cents. “Once the area is clear of Decepticons, we could go back and see if we can’t find anything in that landslide.”

Optimus nodded. “That would be a prudent course of action. However, if we are to help the Rescue Bots, we must first understand what happened to them before you left them. Did you locate the relic?”

“Yes, we-” Chief glanced back at his daughter, and offered an arm to her. Dani stepped forward, and Chief put an arm around her shoulders before looking back up at Optimus. “I think we did.”

Dani took a deep breath. “I, well, I didn’t get a good look at it, but it was definitely some weird Cybertronian tech. I didn’t really notice it at first, but when we- Blades and I- got close to it, it sort of, ah, lit up? It was this like, pointy silver thing, sort of halfway in the rock, and when we got close to it the middle of it turned blue and started glowing. That’s… that’s when things went downhill.”

Bumblebee beeped something at her; Arcee glanced at him. “What do you mean?” She asked.

“When the relic… activated,” Dani continued uncertainly. “The bots started acting weird, like it was affecting them somehow.”

“Affecting them?” Ratchet interrupted. “Affecting them how? Did they try to kill you?”

“What? No!” Dani replied, alarmed.

“That’s good.” Ratchet turned back to his monitor and began typing. “That rules out a few things.”

“I’m glad.” Kade deadpanned.

“Please continue.” Optimus said patiently.

“Right, well.” Dani gathered herself. “Blades sort of, slumped over, I guess? He was having trouble hearing me and like, keeping himself upright. He ended up on the ground. I heard Chase say that he felt lightheaded, so that was probably it? Anyways, the artifact just kept getting brighter, you know? Maybe it was charging up, or something. When we left the cave, it sounded like…” She shook her head, then looked over at Chief. “I don’t know, there was a bright flash. I didn’t see what happened. It freaked Chase out, though.”

Chief pressed his lips into a thin line.

She turned back to Optimus. “So, we left the cave and tried to call for help. That’s where you and the Decepticons came in.”

There was silence for a moment.

“That sound like any artifacts we know about?” Arcee asked Ratchet, arms folded securely over her chest.

“No.” Ratchet snapped over his shoulder. “That’s a very limited amount of information to go on. If I had a picture of it, or-”

Bumblebee interjected a swift round of beeps. Graham didn’t understand any of them, but he was feeling a little defensive, and was with Bee on this one.

Ratchet grumbled something. “It sounds as though they were experiencing a shutdown of nonessential systems. Maybe some sort of EMP device?”

Dani quickly shook her head. “No. My phone still worked after all that, so it couldn’t have been.”

Ratchet inclined his head. “Something else, then. But I have no idea what the purpose of such an artifact could be- and to shut them down so quickly!”

“It _is_ helpful.” Optimus assured. “If the Rescue Bots were disoriented in the presence of the relic, they wouldn’t have traveled very far with it. If they cannot be located in the landslide, they are likely nearby.”

“Then let’s start looking.” Chief said.

Graham really didn’t like the way Optimus paused. He really didn’t like the way Bulkhead and Arcee exchanged glances. And he _definitely_ didn’t like the uncertain look Bumblebee gave their leader.

“Chief Burns.” Optimus said, _almost_ gently. “I understand your desire to assist in locating the Rescue Bots. However, if they have possession of an ancient Cybertronian relic and have attracted Decepticon attention, locating and rescuing them may be a difficult and dangerous undertaking. I do not wish to put your family in that kind of danger a second time.”

“We can handle it.” Kade asserted, and Dani nodded her head in agreement almost immediately. “We’re trained for search and rescue, remember? This is our job.”

“I have no doubt that you would each be an invaluable addition to the search.” Optimus agreed. “That said, Decepticons may still be active in the area. Allow my team to secure the area first, and I will contact you if your assistance is needed.”

“That’s-” Kade began, inflamed.

“-all we can ask for.” Chief finished, shooting his eldest a look.

“Dad!” The fireman protested.

“Not now, Kade.” Chief snapped, and just like that, the conversation was over. Graham felt the exhaustion creeping back in, and he saw the same bone-deep tiredness making its way onto his father’s face.

 _There’s nothing else we can do about it right now_. Graham thought, and tried to make eye contact with Kade. His brother avoided his gaze.

Optimus lifted his gaze, and addressed all of those present. “We will attempt to ascertain the nature of the artifact the Rescue Bots uncovered, and we will begin searching for Heatwave and his team immediately. Ratchet.”

The medic glanced up from his monitor. “Optimus?”

“Please ground bridge the Burnses home.”

\---

It was a long time before she came to her senses.

She didn’t know how long or how far she had walked along the ocean floor before she suddenly became aware of her internal chronometer. It was then that alarm and the reality of her situation began to sink in. She checked herself for injuries again; nothing but a few dings and scrapes, thankfully, and no head trauma to account for the daze she had lost herself in for who knew how long.

Where was she? She looked back the way she had come, but she couldn’t see the cliffside she had left behind in the murky darkness of the ocean. The path ahead was much of the same. She was surrounded by nothing but water and darkness.

Above her, faint trickles of sunlight pierced the surface of the water. She stared at it a long time. If she could get above the water, she might be able to locate herself on a map of Earth, but the surface was twice as far away as she was tall, and she was far too heavy to swim.

She would have to keep moving.

As her scattered thoughts began to reorganize themselves into something comprehensible, she comforted herself with the knowledge that, as long as she was underwater, she was incredibly slow; she could not have wandered far. She decided not to turn around- geographically speaking, she was bound to hit land eventually.

Hopefully it would be somewhere she knew.

That thought gave her pause. Where was she trying to go?

 _Griffin Rock!_ She answered herself, as quickly as the question had popped into her head. She remembered, now; she remembered the quirky little tech-filled island, her mission, the Burnses…

 _The Burnses_. She had been on a mission with them, but they weren’t with her now. She suddenly felt a little sick. She hoped they were alright.

There was something off about her memories, she realized. She could remember coming to Earth, and she could remember the firehouse and the bunker beneath it she stayed in. She remembered the humans she had helped rescue, and she could remember each of the Burnses so vividly she felt like she could reach out and touch them. But it was something about the memories _themselves_ , she thought, something that didn’t quite seem normal.

 _What happened?_ She wondered, and lingered on the memory of the last mission she had been on.

She could see the inside of the cave, before things had gone south and she had broken her way free. She could see the vibrant glow of the relic, only halfway concealed by its container. She remembered the dizziness she had felt in its presence, and how weak she had become…

And she could remember watching herself from the outside as she succumbed to its influence.

That gave her pause. She could remember standing beside the artifact, her steps faltering as its power overtook her, and she could remember… standing twenty feet away from herself, watching the same events happen from the outside. Then she had… run up _behind_ … worried about what was happening to-

Her optics flew open, and suddenly she wasn’t herself anymore.

Suddenly, the Rescue Bots were there, all stuck together and far, far too close. It was like an out of body experience, almost, except they were _reduced_ somehow, a smaller fraction of their own bodies than they ought to be. They all felt and saw the same things; the pressure of the ocean around them, the last vestiges of the day’s light fading away above them, the muted sounds of water moving-

And the gut-wrenching pain of their body trying to pull itself apart.

She lost track of time again.

When she came back to her senses, she felt nothing but the ache of a body that was just barely holding itself together, and the acute burning feeling of what she knew to be the artifact, keeping her components, the Rescue Bots, locked together. She sat down hard on the ocean floor, and closed her optics. She gathered herself.

The fire of the artifact burning near her sparks slowly ebbed away, and when it was gone completely she felt just a little calmer. She looked back up to the surface of the water. No more light streamed through.

“What happened to me?” She asked, but water filled her mouth and no one heard her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO, the beginning of this fic was the bit I had the most trouble with, so hopefully chapters from here on out will be a bit longer. esp the next couple chapters bc we get a break from the ~drama~ (sort of). anyways thank u for reading so far


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again everyone! it's been awhile since i've updated so a couple things;
> 
> first of all, this chapter is very long and angsty so i hope you're into that.
> 
> second of all, regarding updates: unfortunately i can't make any promises on when exactly i will update, but rest assured this fic will be finished eventually, because i love it a lot! c:
> 
> i'd also like to again thank everyone for leaving kudos and comments! i appreciate you!

The early morning ocean fog had already rolled in, thick with the chill of approaching winter. Chief’s headlights cut through it as he carefully navigated the road, and he took a moment to be thankful that they’d had light precipitation so far this year; there wasn’t much ice on the road to be worried about in addition to the low visibility.

Chief found himself leaning forward and scanning the road ahead a little more closely than he usually did. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t always cautious, but, well, it was a bit different when he was the one actually at the wheel.

He sighed. The bots had been gone for over two weeks now. Optimus team’s had found bolt nor servo of them at the cliff side they had last been seen at, and hadn’t found any clues to what artifact they might have encountered. Optimus had explained to him that part of their ‘Iaconian database’ was heavily encrypted, and that there was no way to search for the artifact unless they happened to decode the exact coordinates- and there was no telling how long it would take them to stumble across its entry.

That, combined with the fact that there was no way for their two small teams to comb the entire bottom of the ocean, left them exactly nowhere. At this point, the Rescue Bots would turn up- or they wouldn’t. There was nothing to do but wait.

Finally, Chief rounded a bend and Doc’s lab came into sight. He slowed to a stop just in front of the garage door, turned the ignition, and carefully put the keys in his front pocket. He had already made the mistake of leaving them in once this week.

Chief rubbed the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. It was still early morning, and the town hadn’t quite woken up enough yet to get itself into trouble, but it was only a matter of time. Losing the bots had been more than just hard on the team’s morale- it had seriously impacted their ability to do their jobs.

He and Kade, luckily, had actual emergency vehicles they could use as backup, but that left them both without partners. Blurr and Salvage had arrived from the mainland shortly after the other bots had disappeared, and had teamed up with Dani and Graham respectively. While the two had already proven to be invaluable assets to the team (even Blurr, surprisingly), that still left them short two team members and completely without aerial support.

They were still rookies, though, and Chief found himself sorely missing the discipline and experience of the main team. He didn’t dare complain, though; green though they might be, Blurr and Salvage were all too aware of how serious their position was now, with Heatwave’s team gone. Besides, High Tide had just arrived the other morning- maybe he could whip them into shape.

Chief finally pushed the patrol car’s door open and heaved himself out of his seat. No point sitting around and marinating; there was work to be done before the chaos of the day began.

He made his way towards the front door, adjusting his utility belt as he went. He could faintly hear Trex stomping around somewhere, but couldn’t spot the robot’s silhouette through the fog. He sighed in relief when he made it to the door without crossing paths with the dinosaur- the darn thing still unsettled him a bit.

Doc made it to the door in what Chief considered to be record time. “Chief!” Doc grinned, lacking none of his usual enthusiasm. “Come in. It’s _much_ warmer inside.”

Chief thanked him almost mechanically and stepped inside- and immediately shivered as he was engulfed in hot air. It was much, _much_ warmer inside.

“Having some trouble turning off the new heater.” Doc said by way of explanation as he closed the door behind him. He gave Chief an apologetic smile. “Anna is working on it now.”

Chief couldn’t help but pull his collar away from his neck as he fairly began to bake in the near-sweltering heat. “It’s not a fire hazard, is it?”

“No, no.” Doc ushered Chief deeper into the lab. “And, well, if it gets out of hand, I know who to call.”

Chief nodded once, willing to give Doc (and, mostly, Professor Baranova) the benefit of the doubt, and followed him down the familiar maze of hallways.

“Now-” Doc gestured vaguely as they entered his lab proper, and walked over to the array of computer monitors. “I called you because- well, you recall that I’ve installed several electromagnetic sensors in the water around the island, yes?”

“The ones Morocco’s shark kept eating.” Chief agreed as he walked up behind Doc and studied the computer screens.

“The very same.” Doc confirmed, tapping away at his keyboard. “Well, the sensors report to me when they detect unusual levels of water displacement. Anything the size of, say, a shark or a sailboat or larger would be recorded and noted by the sensors.”

A map of the island popped up onscreen, with the locations of the underwater sensors marked by large blue dots. Doc highlighted a small section of three dots, and a readout popped up next to the map.

“The sensors in this area have been picking up something large, much larger than a shark, disturbing the water here for the last several days.” Doc explained, to Chief’s relief- he had no idea what the readout said. “At first, I thought it must have been a tidal wave or other large ocean disturbance but, well- a tidal wave would have hit the island or dissipated by now, not moved back and forth over one comparatively small section of the ocean.”

“An animal, then?” Chief guessed.

“That was my next thought, yes.” Doc conceded. “But animals wouldn’t do this, except perhaps fish or seals, but- well, it’s just so large. A blue whale would not come to Griffin Rock’s waters and swim in a circle for a few days.”

For a moment, Chief entertained the idea that it might just be High Tide who was causing the disturbance, but he dismissed the thought just as quickly. High Tide had only just arrived to Griffin Rock, and he certainly hadn’t spent his entire time floating back and forth between three of Doc’s buoys.

“I would look into it myself,” Doc continued. “But the size of the disturbance might imply that it’s just a bit too big for me to handle on my own.”

“We’ll check it out, Doc.” Chief said, finally. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Of course.” Doc said, and glanced at Chief from the corner of his eye. “And, well, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so…”

Chief saw what he was getting at. “I’ll have High Tide take a look at it while we keep an eye on the mainland.”

Doc nodded. “It’s always good to have an extra set of hands.” He turned fully to face Chief then, his expression concerned and voice soft. “Has anyone heard from Heatwave and his team yet?”

Chief grimaced. “No. Optimus’s team is keeping a close eye on things, but there’s only so much they can do. All of our leads have gone cold except for the most impractical one.”

Doc frowned, and clapped a hand to his friend’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll turn up soon- I know they’ll do everything in their power to get back home. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, Charlie. I know Frankie and Anna would be happy to lend their hands as well.”

Chief couldn’t help the tired sigh that escaped him. “Thanks, Ezra. I appreciate that. I’ll be sure to let you know if there’s anything you can help with.”

“That’s all I can ask for. Here. Let me walk you out.”

\---

The autumn weather had firmly ensconced the island in ocean fog and chill, even now, late in the afternoon. The wind stirred fallen leaves and grass that had just barely grown past regulation length on the school lawn, but with hardly any force. The scene outside the classroom was either the calm before the storm, or the cloying stagnancy of a whole world on standby- Cody couldn’t tell.

Things were starting to get to him, to say the least.

He hated waiting. He could do it, sure; on the right day, he could be the most patient kid in the world, and, to be quite honest, he _had_ been remarkably patient in the last weeks- but he could only take so much. The Rescue Bots still weren’t back, and he had a lump in the back of his throat he had long given up on trying to swallow.

He heard his teacher moving on to the next lesson, accompanied by a chorus of pages shuffling as the other students shook themselves from their own weather-induced stupors to catch up. Cody couldn’t bring himself to do the same, his eyes locked onto a point a few feet away from the window.

Internally, he sighed. He knew he should be paying attention- he wasn’t familiar enough with the material to risk not paying attention now, but it was probably too late anyways; almost nothing his teachers had said all day had stuck in his mind.

When the bots had first gone missing, he had still obligingly gone to school each morning, did his homework, and had had such razor focus in class that even his teachers couldn’t help but voice their surprise at his dedication to education. He had done it for his family, really, he realized that now. He knew there was nothing the Burnses could do to help find the bots, and he knew that going to school would help his dad and siblings because they wouldn’t have to worry about him- and he knew, thinking back to all the times Boulder and Chase had helped him with his homework or scolded him for truancy, that it’s what the bots would have wanted him to do.

Now, though, all he could think of was the scene he had returned to after school that one fateful day; his family all seated on the couch in the bunker, alone, their eyes and faces full of sorrow and guilt, trying not to consider every one of the horrible fates the bots could have met. All he could think of was that, even if the bots had had to walk across the bottom of the ocean to get home, _they should have been here by now_.

Frankie kept her eyes fixed on the back of Cody’s head, her mind also distracted from the lesson, but for a different reason. This semester, she and Cody only shared two classes- their first and last ones- but she knew without knowing that Cody had been like this all day. She chewed her bottom lip. It wasn’t hard to guess what was bothering him; the problem was that there was nothing she could _do_ to help him. At least, there wasn’t anything major she could do.

But no matter how small the gesture, she figured, anything would help at this point, and there was _one_ thing she could do.

The bell rang a few minutes later, and at its chime, Frankie leaned forward towards Cody.

“Hey, would you mind coming up to the lab with me?” She asked, and when Cody turned to fix her with an uncertain look, she hastily added: “I have something for you.” She lowered her voice, so it was barely audible over the loud shuffling and talking of students leaving class for the day. “It’s about the bots.”

Cody still didn’t look sure, but he nodded, and they rose to leave together a few moments later, long after the last of their classmates had filed out. Frankie waved goodbye to their teacher; Cody managed the wannest of smiles.

Frankie moved through the busy halls with a neutral expression, mostly, but whenever she caught sight of Cody from the corner of her eye, she frowned severely. Cody might have his share of problems, drama, and the like, but he was by no means an unhappy child, and to be so upset for so many days in a row… it was uncharacteristic of him. Once, at lunch, one of his old Lad Pioneer friends had asked if he was feeling alright, and Cody had simply nodded and replied, ‘family stuff’. That had pushed Frankie over the edge- she couldn’t take it anymore. She was going to cheer Cody up, Rescue Bots or no.

They parted ways briefly, Frankie to trot up to her dad’s van, and Cody to retrieve his bike. Frankie explained to Doc that Cody was going to come visit for a bit, and Doc waited patiently for Cody to return, stow his bike in the trunk, and climb into the backseat.

They traded some stiff, routine conversation about how their days were before falling into relative silence, Doc tapping his hands against the wheel to some song on the radio, and both the children staring listlessly out the window.

Truth be told, Frankie was missing the bots too, though probably a bit less fiercely than her friend was. By the time the Greenes had learned the bots’ secret, they had almost seamlessly grafted themselves into the Burns family, so it had only been a matter of time until they worked the same charm on the Burnses’ close family friends. Maybe a week or two after the revelation, Frankie had wandered into the firehouse bunker and been met with a chorus of ‘Hi, Frankie’s, and she had decided that she rather liked the bots- apparently, they felt the same, and had worked their way into the Greenes’ lives too.

And now they were gone. There was just a hole where they had been, and Frankie was surprised at how big and empty that hole really was, chewed at the edges by anxiety.

 _It really is like losing your family,_ she thought, thinking back to Cody’s comment. She could only imagine how he felt.

As they neared the lab and climbed in altitude, the fog slowly thinned until the sun finally made its presence known, burning coldly down on the asphalt and dewed grass on either side of it. Then, finally, _finally_ they were home. It had been a long, quiet ride.

“I’ll be in the lab, working on that heating unit, if you need me.” Doc told them, helping Cody pull his bike from the trunk and leaning it up the side of the garage.

“Okay.” Cody said with synthetic cheer, trying to fight off his gloom in the presence of an adult. “Thanks for the ride, Doc.”

Doc, not fooled by Cody’s affectations, smiled down at him and gently put a hand on his shoulder. “Any time.”

Frankie smiled more genuinely at her father as he passed her, and she waited until he was safely within the lab before she turned her attention back to Cody.

Cody, knowing that he hadn’t fooled Doc, had returned to his grim mood, and kicked at a small rock near the corner of the garage. He met Frankie’s eyes after a moment.

“Come on.” She said, her mood picking up with the excitement of what she had to show him. “This way.”

She led him to the other side of the garage, and up the stairs, then through the kitchen, up another flight of stairs, down a hall and, finally, to her room.

She kicked her shoes off without hesitation, flopped onto her bed, and started digging through an end table. Cody, notably more lethargic than she, closed the door a beat and a half after they had entered, and sat carefully on the bottom edge of the bed.

“Cheer up, Cody.” Frankie said brightly, pausing only briefly in her search to look up at him. “You’re gonna like this.”

It wasn’t that Cody didn’t believe her, but, well, some things were easier said than done. He sat silently while she dug through her things.

“Ugh, _here_ it is.” She pulled a small flash drive out of the drawer and closed it, the heap of things she had moved rattling together violently. She held out her hand. “Your comm tab, please.”

Cody blinked, but obligingly searched through his bag for it. He handed it over. Frankie nodded once in thanks, then buckled down and got to work- in the flash drive went, and she crossed her legs on the bed, placing the comm tab between them.

“When the bots first went missing,” She began, glancing apologetically at Cody for the reminder. “Salvage came by to give Dad and Chief something. You see, the bots, they can track each other’s electromagnetic signals. It’s sort of like how we can track cell phones and comms, but way more specific. Basically, instead of reading those kinds of communication signals, they can read each other’s spark signals.”

“Okay.” Cody said slowly. “I get it. That’s cool. And that’s better than comm signals because…?”

“Because they can’t be deactivated.” Frankie answered. “Comms, phones- those things can be turned off. You can’t track a phone if the phone’s not on. But spark signals…”

“Sparks are like the bots’ souls.” Cody was catching on. “They can’t be turned off.”

“Exactly!” Frankie looked away for a moment to mess with the comm tab: she seemed to be downloading a program onto it. “Salvage had a program for tracking spark signals that could be added to the comm tracking software we already have. We ran it through some satellites, but the signals can still be blocked, and they didn’t find anything. The program still works, though, and the Rescue Bots’ signals are programmed into it. They _also_ programmed some Decepticon signals into it, but- well, that hasn’t been a problem.”

She handed the comm tab back to Cody, apparently finished. He took it, and she leaned forward to show him what she had done, literally putting their heads together.

Cody studied the screen. He was familiar with the software; he had tracked comm signals from the command center before, after all. This looked exactly the same.

“Alright, so.” Frankie said. “This is the normal program. And _this_ -” Here she tapped an unfamiliar icon in the corner of the screen, which revealed a dropdown menu. She selected the only other option in the menu, and the screen refreshed. “Is the new program.”

It looked more or less the same- a map of Griffin Rock- but now there were three dots on it. One of the dots was moving a bit and seemed to be driving through the streets downtown. Frankie tapped it, and a small window popped up next to it, containing a picture of Blurr and a little bit of text.

“There’s Blurr.” She said, then moved her finger to tap a stationary dot out by one of the more remote stretches of houses, near the woods. An icon of Salvage appeared next to it. “Salvage. And, uh…” Her hand hovered over the last dot, which was floating just off of the coast.

“High Tide.” Cody supplied.

“Right.” Frankie leaned back and regarded her friend. “I downloaded it from the mainframe because, um, you know. I thought you might like to have it. This way, when the Rescue Bots come back, you’ll be like, the first one to know.”

Cody stared blankly at the little map, and then regarded Frankie. This program- it wouldn’t help him find the bots, not really. If it hadn’t found them yet, it wasn’t going to miraculously uncover their location now that Cody had a copy of it. It couldn’t help the feeling that he wasn’t doing enough for them. But, if nothing else, at least Frankie _understood_ how he felt, and she was _trying_ \- and that, at least, was enough for him.

“Thanks, Frankie.” He said, his voice cracking.

Frankie tried to smile, but it faded quickly. She scooted over the bed a bit, blankets scrunching up, and sat next to him silently as he tried in vain to compose himself, a few tears slipping through his control and down the side of his nose. He wiped them away quickly, and Frankie pretended not to notice.

After a long silence, she slung an arm around him. “Don’t worry, Cody.” She comforted, feeling a bit awkward. “We’ll find them. We always do when they get themselves into trouble.”

Cody barked out an uncomfortable bit of laughter, and nodded a few times. “Yeah. You’re right.”

Frankie drew herself up, affecting an air of superiority. “Of course I’m right. When am I not?”

Cody laughed more genuinely at that, and a few minutes later the tension in the air had almost dissolved, and they were once again just two friends without a trouble in the world.

\---

As the comm tab had informed the children, High Tide was, indeed, floating just off the coast of Griffin Rock, near the coordinates that Doc Greene had provided Chief Burns with just this morning. He was ensconced deep within the ship that formed his larger robot body, and was currently bent over his work; he had set his ship to drift about half a league out from where the disturbances had been detected and then turned his focus to a monitor feeding him a radar image of the ocean floor every half klik.

When he had detected nothing after the first twenty minutes, he had settled back in his seat and prepared himself for a long stakeout; if whatever was causing the disturbance wasn’t here at the moment, it stood to reason that it would return, and he had to be ready for it when it did.

He activated his comm. “Chief Burns? High Tide reporting in.”

The comm remained silent for half a beat before the other end crackled to life. “I hear you, High Tide.” The Chief replied, sounding a little strained. “Have you found anything?”

“Negative.” High Tide leaned forward in his seat a bit to scrutinize the radar map. “I’m only picking up normal sea activity on my radar, but I’ll stay out here a bit longer to see if anything pops up.”

“Understood.” Chief sighed. “Let me know if you- no, Dani! Tell Blurr to put that somewhere else- let me know if you see anything unusual.”

High Tide harrumphed, cycling the image of the sea floor through a few different filters. “I will, but I think I can handle any freak Earth animals that swim by.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Chief responded, sounding a little less stressed than when he had answered. “I have to go, but good luck out there.”

“Over and out,” High Tide acknowledged, and then cut the communication line.

The cabin fell into silence again, and High Tide drummed his fingers against his thigh. He stared thoughtfully out one of the large windows that afforded him an unobstructed view of one of Earth’s massive oceans. Decisively, he rose from his seat and left the cabin.

It took only a few short steps for him to reach the entrance to the elevator that would lift him into the head of his larger body. He stepped inside, the doors shutting automatically behind him, and transformed into his boat form, to match the current state of his ship.

When the elevator arrived a moment later at its destination, an array of panels that lined the walls of his larger body’s head shifted and transformed back to reveal several mechanical arms and cables; the physical network that made up the ‘brain’ of his augmented form. Cables spooled towards him and mechanical arms reached for him in a weird technical dance that High Tide was more than familiar with by now.

He relaxed as soon as he felt his senses extending. He could feel the water lapping at his hull and the sea breeze rushing over his deck, and took comfort even in the sound of wretched, screeching Earth birds, far above him. He hadn’t realized he had been so tense until the tension was almost gone. It made sense, though; his larger body could withstand hurricanes. The smaller High Tide was, by no means, a fragile bot, but it was still a bit of an adjustment to downsize.

He accessed the readout of the ocean floor. It popped up on the inside of the huge window that was his larger form’s “optics”, appearing on the glass as clearly as if it were a computer screen. Nothing had popped up on the radar since the last time he checked.

He fired up his engines, his deck rumbling ever so slightly as he maneuvered himself into a different position. He might as well search the whole area while he was out here; if the disturbance was as big as Doc Greene suspected, and it was hostile, it would be irresponsible of High Tide to not be as thorough in searching for it as possible.

Scanning the ocean beneath him as he went, High Tide devoted another mite of his processing power to mulling over the situation at hand. He had been doubly filled in by Salvage and Optimus Prime, and both of them were equally troubled by the Rescue Bots’ continuing absence. High Tide had been late to assist the team on Griffin Rock because he had detoured to the bots’ last known location- but even he couldn’t find any trace of them, or the artifact.

He didn’t like the thought of Heatwave’s team crushed by a landslide or in Decepticon claws, often as they annoyed him. No one deserved such a fate, certainly not them. He had never met a group of bots so dedicated to their function, and it had been a long time since he had seen bots be so compassionate towards their fellow lifeforms (well, sometimes. Depended on the lifeform).

He sighed inwardly. Optimus Prime had known exactly what he was doing when he had assigned his old friend to assist the Rescue Bots. After millions of years of nothing but death and destruction, being assigned to Griffin Rock was like a weird temporal vacation, removed from the realities of a galaxy torn apart by war. It wasn’t that being a Rescue Bot was easy, or the problems they dealt with were trivial, but when you had seen entire cities laid to waste and more bodies than you could count, the problems of Griffin Rock were a breath of fresh air, as it were. After the events of the last few weeks though, the bubble had burst in the most jarring of fashions. Things were a bit more subdued now that reality had set in.

And he, damn him, had gotten attached to the little town and its protectors- even the weird organic ones. It didn’t just didn’t feel right, going about his business as if nothing were wrong. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he was worried.

He scanned the ocean around him again, this time pulling up a visual feed. Still nothing.

It wasn’t until the Earth’s sun was sinking towards the horizon that High Tide started to get frustrated. He had sailed between the three buoys Doc Greene had marked for him several times already, and had come up with nothing. There was nothing but fish and rocks in this part of the ocean, and High Tide couldn’t help but feel like he had been wasting his time.

He stalled where he was, bobbing up and down on the gentle ocean swells. He pulled up the readouts that Doc Greene had sent over, and studied the problem data that had sent him out here in the first place.

The initial disturbance had taken place about a week ago. The buoy furthest from the island had detected a large displacement of water that had moved around it towards the island in what was more or less a semicircular path- and then it had stopped. About a day later, it picked up the same disturbance and tracked it south, until its range ended and the second buoy picked up the object. The second buoy reported similar activity, though this time the object went in a complete circular path around the buoy at a stop and go pace over the next two days. The third buoy had reported an object entering its range, but there was no data on any further movements until a day and a half later, when the object moved in a diagonal line straight past the buoy. That had occurred yesterday.

It was completely nonsensical. High Tide agreed that it was weird, but he was baffled as to what might have caused it. It looked like the path a thinking creature might take, not an animal, but the only boat out here was him, and if there was a vehicle under the water, he should have picked it up on one of his many scans- unless the object had already left the area, somehow avoiding detection on the way out.

It didn’t make sense that the object would take care to hide its exit and not its entrance, though, so it must still be around here somewhere- so why couldn’t he find it?

He must have missed it somehow. That was the only explanation he would accept. Still drifting aimlessly on the open sea, the sun now sinking below the horizon, High Tide pulled up all the data he had collected in the last several hours and starting sorting through it.

First, he simply pored over all of the data again, in case he had been distracted when he passed the object and missed it. When he was satisfied that he hadn’t missed anything obvious, he started running through infrared visual footage he had collected and simultaneously started checking his radar maps of the ocean floor against radar data of the area that had already been collected by the humans that lived there.

As he did this, he had a little bit of processing power left over to simply think. He was going over the data now, but he had scanned all of the areas the thing had been in. Where else could it be?

He pulled up a map of Doc Greene’s buoys. Was it possible that there was a hole in the net the doctor had weaved? He outlined the ranges of the buoys, and was almost disappointed by what he saw. Doc Greene had accounted for every possible path a boat might take through these waters- no area at a certain distance from the island was left uncovered.

He paused.

He stared at the map.

It was displaying the data from the buoys in real time. The one nearest to him was pinging in agitation, so he accessed the readout. As he scanned the data, he noted that some of the disturbance it was registering now could be accounted for by his own presence, but something seemed a bit off about it to him.

He went to the readout for the next closest buoy, whose range he had passed out of a little under an hour ago. There was- yes, there was the log for his ship passing by, right on schedule, but… about fifteen minutes later, the buoy had logged another disturbance.

One that was identical to the mass of the object he had been trying to find all day.

He paused again.

 _Had the damn thing been_ following _him all afternoon?_

If so, it was clever. It had stayed just out of his range, and had moved through the areas High Tide had already searched and had no reason to be suspicious of. He cursed himself for being so foolish-

His sensors pinged him at the sudden proximity of a large object, a moment before he physically felt something touch his hull. He flinched inwardly at the contact- it felt- like a hand…?

Something gripped his side and _pulled_ , the ship listing crazily to the side as something heavy pulled itself out of the water and partially onto the deck.

High Tide could only stare as a dripping figure hoisted itself onto his deck, trying to balance out the horrible rocking of the ship by heaving herself completely over it so her legs dangled off one side and her arms off the other. Once she had pulled herself completely out of the water, she went limp, looking for all the world like a limp noodle that had been thrown against the wall but didn’t stick.

High Tide recovered remarkably fast. “What in _Primus’_ name-”

\---

_On the other side of the island, another ship was pulling close to the shoreline, but it wasn’t heading for the harbor. A buoy bobbed forlornly as the ship glided past it, and then stopped to anchor. From the boat, several smaller boats filled with heavily geared humans were lowered into the water._

_One human, at the head of the small convoy of powerboats, quickly surveyed his crew and then leaned into a walkie-talkie._

_“This is Bravo-1.” He said, voice slightly muffled by the tactical mask he had on. “What’s our status?”_

_The other end of the communicator crackled to life. “Airstrip secure, Bravo-1. You’re green to go.”_

_“Understood.” Bravo-1 straightened up and nodded to the man at the engine of his powerboat. He clicked a dial on his comm, switching to the closed frequency. “Let’s get to it.”_

_“Alien hunting!” Someone in another boat called, affecting the voice of one Patrick Star._

_Everyone laughed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that line about the limp noodle comes to you courtesy of my friend chase, so thanks chase
> 
> we'll check in with Blurr and Salvage in the next chapter B)


End file.
